A Lorraine Robinson is an award-winning theatre director, dramaturg, producer, nonprofit arts administrator, and community-based arts educator. For seven years, she served as Artistic Producing Director of MuseFire Productions, a (501c3) not-for-profit theatre and film production company dedicated to multimedia and stylistically challenging work (especially the voices of women and individuals of color) which she co-founded with (Joint) Artistic Producing Director, Michelle T. Hall.

A DMV native, Ms. Robinson received a double bachelor’s degree in Theatre and Psychology (with coursework in film studies and racism studies) from St. Mary’s College of Maryland where she studied experimental directing under the late Dr. Joanne Klein.

After St. Mary’s, she began her professional career in the regional theatre, working in directing and dramaturgy in the Artistic Office of the Dallas Theater Center with Richard Hamburger and in production with directors such as: Reggie Montgomery, Vivian Matalon and Lonny Price and working on DTC’s “Big D Festival of the Unexpected,” on the workshop production of “The America Play” with director, Liz Diamond, and (then) emerging playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, igniting her passion for new plays/festivals, and fueling her ongoing interest in theatrical pieces with challenging content and form.

She earned a Master’s Degree in Theatre (concentration in Directing) from Brown University on academic fellowship and directed her thesis production within the Rites and Reason Theatre where she also served as Literary Board Coordinator and Co-Producer/Dramaturg for the George Houston Bass New Play Festival (with Artistic Director Elmo Terry-Morgan).

Ms. Robinson has directed, assistant directed and dramaturged projects at many venues around the DMV such as: Arena Stage, Transformation Theatre Company, Washington Shakespeare Company, Round House, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Tsunami Theatre Company, Trumpetvine Theatre Company, Serenity Players, and Avant Bard. Projects Include: Director for You Were Mine (Transformation Theatre Company); Director for Baltimore and Let Me Down Easy (St. Mary’s College of MD); Director for Three Strangers Sitting Around a Backyard Firepit at Two in the Morning Listening to Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska (a social distanced site-specific play by Bob Bartlett); Director for Citizen Patrol and Bulrusher (MuseFire Productions); Director for The Piano Lesson, A Raisin in the Sun and Annie (Sitar Arts Center), Director for Apologies to Lorraine Hansberry (You Too, August Wilson) and In the Bowels of the Earth (VFP) and Dramaturg for TopDog/Underdog (WSC Avant Bard.)

Awards and Community Engagement:

Regionally, she has also directed at Contemporary American Theatre Company in Columbus, Ohio, where her production of Having Our Say was cited as: one of the Runner Up: Top Ten Productions of the Year by the Columbus Dispatch (2002).

Her production of The Laramie Project at Catco, won the Central Ohio Theatre Critics’ Circle Award for Best Director and Best Production (2002).

Ms. Robinson, additionally has 22 years of experience in non-profit arts administration, including five years doing national recruitment work providing access for BIPOC artists and administrators to the nonprofit arts field as the Allen Lee Hughes Fellows & Interns Program Coordinator at Arena Stage. She spent 17 of those years doing Community Arts Education work at Sitar Arts Center (which serves an 85% BIPOC student body and has a mission of serving at least an 80% student body from households with low incomes) -- first as its Director of Programs and finally (culminating her tenure in 2020) as the Senior Director of Artistic Programs and Strategic Partnerships.

Presented in 2017 from the Black Women’s Hook-Up (a national women’s community organization – DC Chapter), Lorraine was honored with the DR. ARNITRA BUTLER AWARD: for artistic work and community service.

In 2017 and subsequently in 2018, and 2019 she received TONY AWARDS®: Excellence in Theatre Education Honorable Mention Awards. (She was nominated for a fourth time in 2020.)

Memberships:

Lorraine is a Drama League Finalist, an Associate Member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, and a member of the Black Theatre Network and LMDA.

She is a currently a Board Member (Secretary) and Associate Artist at Transformation Theatre Company (whose mission is to support underrepresented voices.)

She has served as an adjunct professor and guest Director at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and is a member of the SMCM Black Alumni Chapter (and the “Monty Hallers,” an arts alumni affinity group.)

For personal theatrical projects, her company is Creative Turn, LLC.